what expectations the shells hide (we wait for the flowers to bloom)
by greysmalla
Summary: In which Plagg is clueless, and almost becomes accessory to the homicide of Marinette Dupain-Cheng not once, not twice, but three times.
1. facing the sea breeze,

_I know the trope is 5+1, but unfortunately, my brain. Title of fic and chapters taken (or forcefully wrestled and co-opted from) a Mandarin Chinese song: 珊瑚海 (shan hu hai) by Jay Chou and Lara Liang, which is actually really sad, but well._

_I do not own Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir._

Chapters 1 and 2 revolve around the same string of incidences, and mirror Adrien's and Marinette's reflections respectively.

* * *

/0.

He hadn't meant to see it. Really. So, objectively speaking, one would come to the conclusion that he really is blameless in all this, right? And, okay, even if he had thought and _daydreamed_ about it, he hadn't expected it to come true at all. So what if he'd thought out numerous scenarios in which the reveal would happen, planned or otherwise, and so what if in _all those scenarios_, Ladybug turned out to be Marinette Dupain-Cheng? He'd also thought about and daydreamed of having a life with less restrictive walls (_Chat Noir_) and a more attentive father (_Gorilla and Nathalie_) and of not being forced onto a diet 24/7 (_the pastries Nino snuck him every day during lunchtime_) and and and… and he was fucked, wasn't he?

It happens like this:

It's a relatively normal day, with relatively mundane temperatures, and with a relatively mundane Akuma attack. Chat's been toying with the idea of capitalising the other 'A' in "attack", just so he can refer to his meetings with Ladybug as The "AA" he sorely needs. He thinks he's hilarious, but Ladybug just pushes him aside with a roll of her eyes (which glint in humour, and gives him all the validation he needs, really) and instructs him to grab the cup the Akuma is brandishing around like a broadsword. They part ways after the purification with easy banter as they always do, and he notices that he's in close proximity to the Dupain-Cheng Boulangerie and Patisserie. He decides that a meeting with Marinette Dupain-Cheng is in order, so he can charm some free pastries off her, and well, if there's any niggling feelings of wanting to check on her and make sure that she's okay, or any _less welcome_ thoughts, he's not engaging with them. It's like what his father always says: engaging with something lesser means acknowledging them at your level. Or something like that. He doesn't particularly pay attention anymore when his father monologues, choosing instead to run particularly tricky math problems in his head, finding the solution with smooth, well-oiled steps, 1, 2, 3.

He's not at all prepared to see Ladybug land on Marinette's balcony, and, in a whorl of pink sparkles, transform into Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Chat Noir wants to whoop in joy, and to cry hideously for three hours straight. Simultaneously. So when he rushes back to his room, he shuts and locks the windows and draws the curtains shut before he breathlessly de-transforms back into Adrian, Plagg shooting straight for the Camembert drawer. By the end of the evening, he and Plagg (mostly him, with Plagg egging him on, which in hindsight is not an Optimal Omen for a plan) have worked out a strategy; after all, he's not revealing his identity if she finds it out by herself, right? She can hardly fault him for her good brains. The Chat in him gleefully names it: Oper_sais_tion Maribug. Plagg cackles.

/1.

He decides to start out simple. If there's one thing Chat and Adrien both have in common, it's that they both take unnatural (and unnecessary, Ladybug deadpans _once_) delight in coming up with both the _best_ and the _worst_ puns. Adrien takes out his class schedule, textbooks, and his school notebook and gets to work, even studying in advance so he can pull out his materials at the best, most shining moments. Plagg even chips in sometimes, even if all his contributions have something to do with cheese.

"I'm going to get a glass of H2O," Nino declares, proudly showing off what they've just learnt in class, to the slight giggles of Marinette and Alya.

Adrien couldn't have set this up better if he had tried. "Then I'll get a glass of H2O too, which will get me out of photoshoots, _forever_." This is met with a smattering of groans, to which he bows graciously. As an artist, he must take applause where he can get it.

/

"You can't trust atoms, Marinette," he turns around to whisper to her, interrupting her doodle of a poodle, of all things. "They make up _everything_,"

/

He points at his chalk drawing of a cat on the school steps, ruined as it is by the slight puddle left behind on the otherwise dry surface. "水做的?!" he demands. That's right, he can pun in _Mandarin_, too. Marinette laughs so hard she almost falls off the steps, leaving Alya and Nino bemused next to them.

/

The coup d'etat though, was meant to be his Math pun. To his delight, Alya and Nino work together on the problem sets together, leaving him and Marinette with no choice but to partner up as well. "Hey Mari," he says softly, tapping his pencil on her worksheet to get her attention. "Mari," he says. "Do you know what kind of angle you would be if you were one?" She shakes her head. "Acute one!" He looks at her, and he's not disappointed when she shakes her head and sighs at him, the faintest hint of a blush colouring the tips of her ears.

He hits Ladybug with the same joke later on during their patrol run, hoping to catch her off guard and for her to make the connection between Chat Noir and Adrien. Instead, she teasingly shoots back that it backs sense that he'd be the obtuse angle to her acute one, and he's just so _taken aback_ and _in awe_ that she's built on his pun to create her own one, and for a minute he feels like all the stars have aligned in _just_ the right position.

It isn't until he gets home that he realises that she's completely missed the connection between his two identities.

/2.

He tries to approach the issue as Chat Noir next, sidling up to Ladybug on patrol easily, twirling his baton at his side. "So, I did some detective work for you, and I Googled how many attractive, blonde boys with green eyes there are in Paris, and while of course _my_ face was the first in the search results, it—" He's cut off abruptly by a buzz on Ladybug's yoyo, and the indulgent smirk on her face disappears.

"There's an Akuma sighting, three blocks from here," she says, throwing her yoyo out to the next roof.

"Okay," he agrees easily, because he will agree easily to anything she asks him to do (or actually, _tells_ him to do), "But we get to continue this conversation later, right?"

They do not get to continue this conversation later.

Every time he tries to bring it up, he's interrupted by either yet another Akuma attack, or by either of their Miraculouses beeping, or her finger on his lip, as she pushes him away, laughing, claiming that she has to go home soon. He's starting to think the topic is cursed, until one day he catches her staring at a billboard of him, stars in her eyes and a gentle smile on her lips.

"So, big fan of Adrien Agreste, are you?" He teases, startling her slightly as he swings to a stop, flopping down elegantly next to her. "You know, its uncanny how we both have _blonde hair_ and _green eyes_; in fact, he was the one who came up after me in that Google search!"

Ladybug just offers a non-committal _mhm_ as she prepares to stand, leaning slightly against him as she balances her weight.

"You know," he offers, slyly, "I'm a pretty good friend of his. I could set up a date between the two of you, if you want,"

"No thanks," Ladybug says cheerfully as she dusts her hands off, surveying the rooftops and the streets below. "He's a little too pretty for me."

/3.

Adrien physically does not know how to cope with Ladynette's casual stance of him being _a little too pretty for me_. It comes out, verbatim, in a strangled moan to Plagg, who hits his head coming out of the cheese drawer, cackling as he is.

"I'm too pretty, Plagg. _Too pretty_. Is there even such a thing? Can there even _be_ such a thing?" Adrien whines, staring pitifully at the ceiling. Maybe if he accidentally throws himself down some stairs, and breaks his nose. Or he rubs cooking oil all over his face before he sleeps, to coax some pimples out from hiding. Or he shaves off both his eyebrows, and then half of his hair, _while drunk_. Or… or… or…

He emerges from his sleep early the next day, with a clear vision of what he has to do next. "If she thinks I'm too pretty, Plagg," he says earnestly, as he combs his hair carefully, "I'll just have to make her see that she's not that much better herself. I'm going to make her _eat her own words_ and acknowledge that she's just as pretty – and I'm going to do it both as myself and Chat!"

Plagg cheerfully gives a strong thumbs-up assessment of Adrien's plan. "You're going to break her, kid, I just know it."

Adrien takes it as encouragement as he shoulders his bag. "Thanks, Plagg."

/

"Hi Marinette! You look pretty today," he sings over his shoulder, as he waltzes past her in the school corridor.

/

"Your hair looks really nice today, Marinette," he whispers to her, as he turns around to pass her some worksheets.

/

"I love your new outfit, Marinette! It really suits you," coupled with a dazzling smile as they walk behind Alya and Nino, who are swinging their hands together, snug in assured-coupledom.

/

"Marinette, one of the photographers from the shoot in the park asked if you would be willing to do a session with him, what should I tell him?" (This one, strictly speaking, is not a lie. The photographer had been struck by sudden inspiration watching their interaction, and was eager to replicate that – if _la mademoiselle_ was interested, of course.)

Marinette responds to all the compliments with a confused blush, until the last one, where she lets out an audible squeak and freezes on the spot. He blinks, slowly, a Cheshire smile unfurling on his face. "He thinks you're really pretty, and you could model alongside me!"

Marinette immediately turns bright red, mouth opening and closing, resembling nothing so much as the goldfish that Plagg liked to tease sometimes. _Score_, Adrien thinks. _Now she's pissed. _

When he swings by Marinette's room later that night, as Chat Noir, she's already sitting on her balcony, sketchbook long abandoned in her lap as she stares unseeingly into the night sky.

"Canary for your thoughts, princess?" he offers, unfairly smug at 10 in the evening.

"Chat," she says slowly, the word rolling off her tongue like molasses. He waits. "Chat, do you think I'm… pretty?"

He couldn't have asked for a better follow-up to his plans, honestly. "Of _claws_, princess," he offers, earnest in his answer, nodding his head to add emphasis. "I even think you're on _paw_ with Adrien Agreste."

The only reaction he gets from that is a strangled "thank you" from the _very red_,_ very angry_ girl. He beams at her. "Goodnight, purr-incess," he says cheerfully, taking off into the night.

_Point to Chatdrien_.

/+0.5.

Nothing more comes out of his past three attempts, and it's _discouraging_, it really is.

Short of pulling Marinette aside, forcing her to keep her eyes open with toothpicks and transforming in front of her, Adrien has no more ideas on how to lead her to see that he's Chat Noir, and it's killing him.

Even if she doesn't want to date him after finding out (which is, you know, devastating, but it's something he can deal with), she's still someone who can fully understand and _appreciate_ what he (they) goes through every day. It's physically, and sometimes emotionally, draining, and even though he appreciates the hang-out sessions they have after patrol, some nights, it's not enough.

Plagg helps, but he's just not a schooling minor who has to account for their presence to adults and maintain their façade of just being a normal child with normal capabilities and normal extra-curricular activities (although he's probably pushing it, even with just civilian Adrien's schedule) while having to fight crime and Akumas (which probably also counted crime and he was definitely rambling) and protect the _entire city_ from a faceless villain who thinks surprise attacks are fun. So yeah, it can get overwhelming, and some nights he just lays there, running countless scenarios through his mind of what happens if he fails, if she fails, if _they_ fail as he listens to Plagg's light snoring next to him, trying to ground him in the night.

And he _knows_ the dangers that are associated with revealing themselves to each other, okay, he's not entirely as carefree and gullible as Chat Noir may seem to be, but he doesn't think it'll make a difference either way, in the end. Because Ladybug can absolutely _not_ afford to let herself get Akumatised, so really, there's no threat of Hawkmoth knowing his identity from her, and if she does get compromised, Paris is screwed either way, isn't she? And well, it's a little too late to erase her identity from his mind, short of getting a lobotomy, but even then he thinks he will still _know_, deep down in his bones, because _of course_ it's her – how could it be anyone else?

The last wall of argument he has is that if Chat Noir goes certifiably insane from this repressed pressure, well then – Ladybug can't blame him when he goes absolutely apeshit when Hawkmoth finally does reveal himself, and shoves his baton _so far _up the man's ass.

He tells Plagg this, who gives a perfunctory performative show of advising him against just revealing himself to Marinette.

"It's not safe," Plagg says, with a lazy flick of his tail.

"She could still get Akumatised, no matter how hard she avoids it," he tells Adrien, sounding like he's reading from a script.

"She'll kick your ass if you do that," he ends off, filing his claws against the edge of Adrien's vanity mirror.

"I'd let her," Adrien mumbles into his hands, and they both know he means it, too. Plagg flies up to him and uncharacteristically nuzzles into his chosen's neck.

"You're gonna be okay, kid," he finally says. "I'll hold her back from you."

/+1.

Adrien waits for the next day when he has an afternoon that is _totally_ and _completely_ and _gloriously_ free from photoshoots and fencing and Mandarin lessons and responsibility, and he circles it in fierce red, underlining the date in a bold black. Twice.

Alya runs interference for him when he asks, in shy bursts, if she could possibly help him ensure that Marinette's schedule was free on that day. Alya, who he _knows_ has been watching their interactions with a sly eye, who has been nudging and poking red-in-the-face Marinette from Day 1, who has been laughing with and exchanging glances with confident-and-relaxed Marinette until Day Now.

She hands Marinette off to him with a laughable, completely _transparent_ excuse in a remote corner of the park, before she dances off back to Nino and their quest to drink a record number of bubble teas in a day.

He faces her, takes a deep breath, and says—

Or rather, he means to say, but he's wholly and completely cut off by Marinette's howl of frustration.

"Don't do it," she warns. "Don't do what I think you're going to do."

"Confess?" He offers shyly, hoping to wrest control of the conversation.

Her eyes narrow. "Do not. Confess. What. I think. You're going. To. Confess."

"I'mreallysorrybutI'mChatNoirandI—"

"STOP."

"I accidentally saw your identity when I swung by your balcony a couple of months ago and I've been trying to tell you since then," he finishes meekly, eyeing her like she's an unpredictable predator. Which, to be fair. She is.

So he's wholly unprepared when she sinks to the ground, her head buried in her hands, mumbling something that sounds a lot like "I did not hear this. I did not hear this. I did not hear this."

So he sits down on the grass and waits, too, Plagg hiding in his collar, taking the occasional peek out to watch the show.

After ten minutes, Marinette finally raises her head from her arms and goes, "Why." Then she sinks her head back into her arms, seemingly trying to force herself into a state of denial.

"I just—" he starts, not sure of where he's going with this. But Marinette's head comes back out from her ostrich-position, so he has to force himself to continue. "I just, I'm."

He pauses, and she waits.

"I'm really tired, Marinette," he finally says. "I just really need someone to talk to. About all _this_," he makes a vague gesture to everything around them.

"That's what your Kwami is for," she says, sounding tired and frustrated but also gentle, and kind, and almost understanding. "And we have patrol sessions, and hanging-out sessions, and—"

"It's not the same," Adrien mumbles, staring at the grass at his knees.

There's a pause, before Marinette gets up and scoots against him. "I know," she murmurs, and suddenly they're Ladybug and Chat Noir, but in civilian clothing and civilian faces and civilian forms, but they're leaning on each other and that's all that really matters. Adrien is just really, really thankful that she isn't angry anymore.

Plagg peeks out from his collar, and catches Marinette's eye before he flits out, offering a paw for her to shake with a knowing look in his eye.

"So, you're who has been tormenting my poor kitten this whole time, huh?"

And thankfully, Marinette gives as good as she gets. "And you're the one who has been stinking up _my_ poor kitten this whole time, huh?" (And if Adrien turns bright red when she refers to him as _her_ kitten, well, _so what_ because it's _true_ and it's _fine_ if no one notices it.)

Plagg grins maniacally, clearly ecstatic to have found someone else to fence with, and they shake hands (paw) with enthusiasm.

She unzips her pouch next to her, but all three are completely unprepared for the _flash_ of black and red zipping out, furious, scream-whispering, "Plagg Iamgoingto_kill_you" as she reaches out to grab him, with an utterly _murderous _look on her face.

Adrien is charmed, immediately. He looks at Marinette, who watches in slight alarm as Plagg dances out of Tikki's way, pleading with her to please just let him explain. "I like her," he says, and she snorts as she leans into him.

"Of course you would."

* * *

-/. About the Mandarin Chinese pun, which I took an inordinate amount of time to think of, and which isn't nearly half good as the ones that come out of me organically:  
水 is the Chinese character for "water", which is also a near homophone for the word 誰, which is the Chinese character for "who". In this case, Adrien is both simultaneously asking/saying "water did this/who did this?"


	2. we can taste the future

Marinette's hot take on the events.

* * *

/0.

At the top of Marinette's list of Things She Absolutely Does Not Want To Know is this: Chat Noir's civilian identity. And, over time, she likes to think that she's gotten pretty good at convincing him of the dangers of revealing their identities – without even a mention of her already-put-upon heart, which now stutters to the speech of 2 boys. It's a pickle, to say the least, but at least she can fold it up, small, and pretend she's an ostrich for the limited windows of time that she doesn't have to look at either of them in the eye. That is, until the idiot proclaims his identity to all and sundry in the world.

Well. Maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but she's pretty sure she can hear trumpets and harps and angels singing in soprano and lingering chords in the gush of silence that stretches over her ears when he stretches _just so_ in the library chair. It takes all of her strength not to let out a frustrated scream right there and then, as everything clicks into place, settling into a bone-deep truth that rests in her marrows. Adrian Agreste is Chat Noir. And Chat Noir is Adrien Agreste. She wants to scream. So much.

But then again, that urge to scream and run is _nothing_ like what she feels when Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir makes it absolutely and _abundantly_ clear that he knows who her alias is, and that he wants to level the playing field, so to speak. He doesn't know the field is already level, has been ever since he found out her identity (she really doesn't know how), and that _she's going to break him if he doesn't stop._

He doesn't stop.

/1.

"We'd better choose before all the good Chemistry topics _argon_, Mari," he laughs, when Alya pounces on Nino for the pair project work. She nearly dies inside, but she covers it up with a roll of her eyes and a shove of her textbook at him.

/

They're all sitting on the school steps, chatting lazily and waiting for Gorilla to pick Adrien up, when said boy suddenly shushes them and points at his chalk drawing of a cat on the floor, ruined as it is by the slight puddle left behind on the otherwise dry surface. "水做的?!" he demands. It takes her a while to process it, because she so rarely communicates with her mother in Mandarin nowadays, but when she does get it she laughs so hard she almost falls off the steps. She can feel Nino and Alya's bemusement next to her, waiting patiently for an explanation, but for now there's just her laughter bubbling over and the proud puffed chest of Adrien Agreste.

/

"Hey, Mari," he whispers during Math class, his eyes alight with laughter. Alya has abandoned her for Nino again (later, Alya would nudge her teasingly and say, _you use the word 'abandon'…_) and she's paired with Adrien again. "Mari," he says again. "Do you know what kind of angle you would be if you were one?" She shakes her head. "Acute one!" He looks at her, proud, and his chest puffs up even more when she just shakes her head again and sighs.

She's not surprised when Chat Noir hits her with the same joke later on during their patrol run, and she teasingly shoots back that it backs sense that he'd be the obtuse angle to her acute one. He grins so brightly it almost hurts, as he delights in the fact that _she'd just built on his pun for another one_, completely glossing over the fact that she hadn't responded with familiarity to the same joke.

/2.

She groans internally when Chat brings up _his looks_ during patrol one day, as if it hasn't been something that has been plaguing her _since the day she met him_. He talks about his attractive head of blonde hair and those green green green eyes and she's slightly ashamed to be thankful for the Akuma alert (_AA, Lady! _with that bright, goofy grin) that buzzes on her phone. While she goes through the motions of finding the Akumatised object, figuring out a plan to grab it, destroys, and purifies it, she runs through her own mental list of characteristics that Chatdrien (_oh god_) has thankfully left out of his own description of himself. (and his high cheekbones which can slice paper, probably, and those eyebrows which quirk when he anticipates something funny, and the ears which are always just a _hint_ pinker than the rest of him, and the… and the…) The fight is over before she even knows it, and she barely has enough time for their usual fist bump before she has to flit away and back to her own room, where she can stew in her admiration and annoyance at the very _blonde_, very _beautiful_, very _annoying_ boy, while Tikki floats around, offering squeaks of comfort and cookies, and uses a paper fan to cool her down when she starts pacing up and down.

After that incident, she thinks she does a decent job at avoiding the continuation of that conversation with the _very persistent_ Chat, with some helpful input from the Universe, and Hawkmoth. She'd never thought she would be, in any instance, just even a little grateful to him, but there she was. She blames Chatdrien (_oh good god_) for it.

That is, until she shows up early for patrol, and she's admiring the sunset, and it's really not her fault that Adrien's face is adorning the billboard right in front of the sunset. It's a downright shame, really, and she definitely didn't choose this meeting point just so she can miss the sunset. Which is right behind the billboard. With Adrien's face on it.

Chat shows up, seemingly out of the blue, knocking shoulders with her as he takes a seat, and gleefully takes in the expression on her face. He offers to set her up with Adrien, and she thinks _well, you would try, wouldn't you?_ while she stalls a little as she gets up from her seat.

She says the first excuse that pops into her mind, unbidden, only hearing the words as they come out of her mouth. "No thanks," her mouth says cheerfully. "He's a little too pretty for me."

She's going to kill her mouth. Preferably sooner rather than later, as she sees Chat's ears dip ever so slightly before springing back up again with a vengeance, as he latches on to her arm and starts to direct their patrol course. That she has probably killed whatever little chance she had with him is a realisation that only strikes later, and she buries her head in her pillow and lets out tiny whines, Tikki's tiny paws patting her back in rhythmic strokes.

"He's going to kill me, Tikki,"

"I know, Marinette," the Kwami assures from worn-out practice.

"This is so hard, Tikki,"

"I know, Marinette,"

"I'm going to murder him, Tikki,"

Utterly empathetically: "I know, Marinette,"

/3.

She can talk without stuttering to Adrien now. Really she can, because her discovery and _confirmation_ of him as Chat Noir has really helped to humanise the boy in front of her. It's hard to look at him now, and not think of everything her partner has spilled to her over rooftops and gruelling fights. It's also strangely hard to look at him now, and resist the urge to give him a soft pet on the head. (Chat Noir is _tactile_, and she knows it all too well.)

But what's a girl to do when he starts spouting compliments to her, _every single time_ he has an opportunity to interact with her? This comes hot on the heels of her offhanded (stupid, _stupid _mouth) comment that he's too pretty for her.

"Your hair looks really nice like that, Marinette," he tells her at the class picnic, when she lets her hair down to protect her poor neck from the sun.

/

"I wouldn't know you only had 4 hours of sleep, Marinette, you look as great as ever!" And then without a pause, "But then again I guess you don't need as much beauty sleep since you're already beautiful!"

Marinette's just really lucky it was at the end of the day, and the steps to the school were relatively empty, and Gorilla arrived just then. She would have otherwise happily melted into the ground, and _stayed there for the remainder of all the days_. Tikki helps, with a pinch through the bag, to ground her until she gets back to the relative privacy of her room where she howls into her pillow because _life is so unfair_ and _Hawkmoth needs to get his shit together and just let us defeat him_ and _what is that boy trying to do now?_

/

But the kicker comes when he comes up and tells her that one of his photographers would like to do a shoot with her. And him. Together. Because she's pretty.

Her brain just gives up right there and then. She's only partially aware of her mouth opening and closing, and she tries to think of sounds she can make in lightof that information that the grinning boy has unleashed upon her. She can't think of any, and not even Tikki's pinches are enough to help her anymore. _He thinks she's pretty._ (Well, the photographer does, but he doesn't dispute it.) _He's willing to model alongside her. He's willing to let her model alongside him. He thinks she's pretty. _She barely registers Adrien telling her to let him know as he bounds away, unaware of the ripples he's left in his wake.

She's still thinking about it hours later, even after she's climbed out to her balcony in a futile search for fresh air and a clearer mind. Even now, her thoughts are foggy with the fact that _Adrien thinks she's pretty, oh wow_, and she doesn't register Chat Noir landing on the balcony until he speaks to her, looking like the cat that caught the canary.

Well. If he's going to torture her into insanity like this, she might as well get something out of the deal. "Chat," she asks, bracing herself for impact. "Chat, do you think I'm pretty?"

"Of _claws_, princess," he says cheerfully. "I even think you're on _paw_ with Adrien Agreste."

_That's it_, her brain mutinies. _Stick a fork in me and call for dinner, because I'm done._

She's probably just a beacon of red in the night sky as she wrestles with her self-control and self-consciousness and just herself, in general, to _please breathe_ and _please be normal_ and _just please_. She barely murmurs a goodbye when he leaves, if possible, even smugger than he was when he arrived.

She doesn't know if she'll ever get the chance to face Hawkmoth, because she's pretty sure Adrien Agreste aka Chat Noir aka the _bane_ in her life but also the biggest _boon_, is going to kill her first. She's sure of it.

/+0.5.

Honestly, she's not sure why she doesn't want him to reveal his identity to her, especially when _she already knows_ and he's making it so clear that he wants to tell her. She supposes some of it is due to what Tikki calls her "ostrich mentality"—if she can't see it, then it doesn't exist. If Adrien doesn't outright tell her he knows she's Ladybug, and if he doesn't haul her aside and tell her to her face that he's Chat Noir, then neither must be true.

She also supposes that another, larger, part of it is that if she acknowledges it, then something in their dynamics will have to change. And she doesn't necessarily _want_ it to – she likes things the way they are now. She's comfortable in her own skin with Chat Noir, as both Marinette and Ladybug; words slip out of her mouth like fish in a water about topics she can barely stammer about to someone else. And he's comfortable with her too – she knows the feel of his arm casually slung around her shoulders, the curve of his body against hers announcing their united partnership of them against _the whole world, bring it on, Hawkmoth_, the curl of his tail wrapped securely around her waist as they lounge on rooftops after patrol.

And she's finally getting comfortable with Adrien too – can finally speak more than one coherent sentence around him, can interact with him without turning into a stuttering tomato, and she's finally getting to really _appreciate_ the boy that she had put on a pedestal for so long that she'd nearly forgotten he was just as fallible as the best of them.

At the same time, she doesn't feel good rebuffing his (increasingly) desperate attempts to tell her. She talks it over with Tikki, who offers platitudes and gentle reminders, but ultimately reminds Marinette that it's her decision to make. And that she will always support Marinette, no matter what she chooses to do. (She does hide her intent to _absolutely murder_ Plagg though, because he no doubt encouraged his kitten to go through with his _insane_ plans, thus indirectly causing Marinette's grief and frustration. Marinette shouldn't have to shoulder the life of a small mischievous god on top of everything going on with Hawkmoth. Tikki _knows_.)

Marinette decides to square her shoulders and face the truth head-on. If Adrien really wants to tell her, she will let him, and they will face the fall-out together. Because she can count on him, on Chat Noir, to be her steady and reliable partner, throwing out puns like bullets even in the face of near hopelessness in battle.

/+1.

Or at least that's what she tries to remind herself, when Alya brings her to a remote corner of the park with a _ridiculously transparent excuse_, oh my god she can't believe she'd considered giving up the Ladybug Miraculous to Alya before, because the girl would get eaten _alive_ and her identity would be exposed within _two battles _because she cannot lie to save her life.

But it's Alya, and Marinette would honestly walk through fire if it would make her friend happy, because Alya means the world and then some to her. It's the kind of friendship that's once (or maybe twice, because, Chat Noir/Adrien. Chatdrien.)-in-a-lifetime, and if putting on a pretty blush when Alya drags her there and reveals Adrien will make her happy, then by god she will put on the _prettiest _blush Alya has _ever _seen before she goes running back to Nino and their ridiculous Quest for Diabetes.

She watches as Adrien takes a deep breath, and suddenly all the conviction is swept away like autumn leaves on a wind (she cringes internally; she'sgot to stop watching all those cliché shows that Tikki likes so much).

"Don't do it," she warns. "Don't do what I think you're going to do."

"Confess?" Adrien offers, and she wants to scream, because he looks so _cute_ doing that with his kitten eyes, and it's really just not fair that he has a fighting advantage. She's not going to let him get away with it, though. She feels Tikki's paw resting on her thigh, and she imagines that she can feel herself absorbing Tikki's strength and _self-control, please_.

She narrows her eyes. "Do not. Confess. What. I think. You're going. To. Confess."

"I'mreallysorrybutI'mChatNoirandI—"

"STOP."

"I accidentally saw your identity when I swung by your balcony a couple of months ago and I've been trying to tell you since then," he finishes, and she is suddenly struck by the sudden realisation that she really, really, really wants to punch something.

In lieu of that, however, she chooses to just sink to the grass, trying to ground herself with the feel of the grass and the rocks and the firm earth beneath her. Then she promptly starts to go into self-denial, the process of which Tikki is very familiar with, and which goes something like this: "I did not hear this. I did not hear this. I did not hear this."

She vaguely hears Adrien carefully take a seat a small distance away from her, and she appreciates it. When she finally feels like she can look him in the eye without spontaneously combusting, or punching something, she raises her head from her arms.

"Why." It's meant as a question, but it comes out as a flat statement because _he's right there_, he's Chat Noir, and he's Adrien, he's the best of both her worlds, but she's not really quite ready to deal with that _yet_ (still) and she sinks back down into her ostrich hole. Head, meet arms. Again.

"I just—" She hears him say, so she looks up, out of politeness and (largely) curiousity. "I just, I'm."

He pauses, and she waits. Carefully.

"I'm really tired, Marinette," he finally says. "I just really need someone to talk to. About all _this_," he makes a vague gesture to everything around them. And everything falls into place again, but instead of harps and trumpets and angels singing, it sounds like the gentle creak of the front door when her parents come back in from the bakery.

"That's what your Kwami is for," she says, without really meaning it. Because of course she understands what he's going through. She's going through the same thing. "And we have patrol sessions, and hanging-out sessions, and—"

"It's not the same," Adrien mumbles, staring at the grass at his knees.

Marinette takes a moment to consider the stark differences in their home lives, or what she knows of his, and then _everything's okay_, and she just wants him to know that. That everything is okay, or it will be. She scoots closer to him, trying to convey that by solidifying her presence against him. "I know," she murmurs, and suddenly they're Ladybug and Chat Noir, but in civilian clothing and civilian faces and civilian forms, but they're leaning on each other and she knows that everything is changing, but for the better.

She sees a flicker of motion near the collar of his shirt, and catches the eye of his Kwami, before he flits out cheerfully, offering her a paw with a glint in his eye.

"So, you're who has been tormenting my poor kitten this whole time, huh?"

Marinette hasn't stood up to Chloe for so long without having learnt a thing or two. "And you're the one who has been stinking up _my_ poor kitten this whole time, huh?" (She notices Adrien turn bright red when she refers to him as _her_ kitten, and files that away for future reference.)

The cat Kwami grins fiercely, and she feels as if she has passed an important test, and he has given her a stamp of approval. She takes his paw and shakes it firmly, once, then twice.

She turns to her pouch, intending to let Tikki come out to meet Adrien now that she's met Plagg, and she is _completely taken aback_ when the little Kwami comes flying out at breakneck speed, hissing "Plagg Iamgoingto_kill_you" as she reaches out with murderous paws stretched as far out as they can go.

She and Adrien watch in stunned silence for a moment or two as Plagg dances just out of reach of Tikki's furious swipes, before Adrien breaks the silence, turning to her and saying, "I like her,"

She considers his track record of having friends like Chloe and Alya, his _complete _adoration of Ladybug, and snorts, leaning into his warmth.

"Of course you would."

* * *

-/. About the Mandarin Chinese pun, which I took an inordinate amount of time to think of, and which isn't nearly half good as the ones that come out of me organically:  
水 is the Chinese character for "water", which is also a near homophone for the word 誰, which is the Chinese character for "who". In this case, Adrien is both simultaneously asking/saying "water did this/who did this?"


End file.
